


We Took a Wrong Turn

by angeloncewas



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Affection, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, And then more angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Found Family, George is colorblind, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Memories, Moral Ambiguity, Unbeta'd, can be read as romantic or platonic, just backstory for fun, so i couldn't describe dream's eyes as green, this isnt dream apologism btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29629623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloncewas/pseuds/angeloncewas
Summary: Sam has a specific set of questions to ask every person who wants to see the prisoner. For George, the answers aren't so simple.(A prison visit and a collection of memories.)-“The SMP,” Sapnap reads before turning around to face them. “Kinda stupid name.”Dream shrugs. “We can rename it.”“TheDreamSMP,” George suggests, half-joking.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 137





	We Took a Wrong Turn

**Author's Note:**

> I should say, just in case it's not clear, that the sections are not in chronological order, other than the prison parts that break them up.

They flock to the prison in hordes at first.

Eager eyes fixed on the elaborate cage, Sam has his hands full with protocol and a waitlist. Everyone from the scorned to the mildly interested go poking around, but only some of them have actual reason to visit the evil within Pandora’s Vault.

They’re the ones who are most interesting to watch, as they leave in various states; Puffy heartbroken, Tommy smug, Ranboo shaken.

Each time, George sits on the edge of Bad and Skeppy’s land and wonders what might’ve happened inside.

Eventually the excitement fizzles out. The prison becomes another abandoned landmark, like the now-cleared remains of a lemon tree or the many towers left unoccupied. No one other than George makes the venture to the far side of the Badlands anymore, except Sam on his routine check-ins.

He starts changing the times because he notices George watching, wary of his patterns being analyzed for some sort of plot. George has no interest in trying to shatter the rows of obsidian he knows line the prison walls, but it is kind of funny to watch.

Sam in his netherite getup, cautious of armorless, unconcerned George.

After countless hours of this, Sam stops by his perch.

“Do you want to visit the prison?” Sam asks, tone so distinctly different from usual.

He’s not the Sam who once sheltered George and Sapnap, kind and caring, whose home always smells of pumpkin pie. He’s ‘The Warden,’ the man meant to keep the unbeatable knocked down.

George wants to say _no, of course not._

He doesn’t want to visit the prison, he didn’t want a prison built to begin with; he never wanted to have a reason to go see it.

“Sure,” George replies instead.

Sam nods his masked head in the direction of the prison entrance and George pushes away thoughts of a different, brighter mask.

He’s instructed to press a button and he starts the process, the last portal shattering behind him as he steps forward into the building.

The ceiling is high and the back wall is lined with levers. Sam stands imposingly behind a desk and a lectern, documents flipped over so that only vague lines of ink show through to the other side.

First, apparently, there are questions he needs to answer. Some sort of evaluation; for a moment, George is taken back to the debate floor, Tommy standing across from him. The memory flickers away.

"Be honest and tell me the truth,” Sam says gravely, his voice sweeping across the blackstone floor. “‘Cause if I don't like your answer then I’m just gonna have to ask you to leave.”

“Okay.”

**“When is the last time that you visited the prison?”**

* * *

It’s not George’s proudest moment when he meets Dream.

The kingdom’s economy is flourishing in the parts it has always flourished and failing in the parts it has always failed. Which means that men walk out of restaurants wearing bibs like little children and George can no longer afford food on his meager slum salary.

Hence, the trash bin he’s digging himself a hole into.

 _If only my mother could see me now,_ he can’t help but think, wryly.

It’s not actually that bad. If George’s honest with himself, he’s gone a bit numb from it all.

Murders on every street corner, hired hits parried with hidden swords. He’s seen people last less than a day, but he watches them come and go with the same “good luck” still fresh on his tongue, dryer by the minute.

The one time he mentions this, Sapnap, his only friend, claps him on the back and calls it _apathy._

“I’m surprised you know big words like that,” George had mocked.

“Yeah, I know ‘douchebag’ too, which is what you are.”

They’d scuffled till Sapnap drew his sword and the ever-present crowd in the dingiest parts of the city made a sweeping circle; the newcomers expecting blood to be drawn, the veterans passing bets on who would win.

Sapnap had.

Again, hence the trash.

Shells and plastic flying, George is nose-deep in a smell that’s gonna take ages to get out when the side of the bin rumbles and a voice calls out to him.

“What are you _doing?”_

_Oh Ender._

The metal is smooth against his hands as he pulls himself up and looks the person who’s noticed him in the eye. He’s a guy, taller than George, a curious smile across his lips and eyes glittering in the dim light.

“I…”

His expression softens slightly. “You have wheat in your hair.”

George sighs and pulls it out before leaning back against the grimy stone wall. “Thanks.”

“So, what’re you doing?”

“Looking for food,” George shrugs. He’s been far past shame for a while, but something under his skin flushes at getting caught rummaging like a raccoon by this man. He looks too clean to be a part of the slums, with his spotless jacket and armored boots.

“I have food if you want it,” the man offers.

“I’m not a charity case.” George replies immediately, but the man rolls his eyes.

“You were just digging in the trash.”

George visibly hesitates and the stranger sighs, rifling through his bag. A glint of white catches George’s eye before he pulls out a loaf of bread and waves it like a flag. George’s mouth waters and he fights to keep his face neutral.

The guy smiles. “I really don’t need it.”

George swallows. “Are you sure?”

“No catch. I promise. I wouldn’t offer if it mattered.”

Seemingly of their own accord, George’s hands stretch toward the bread and he almost wants to cry when it’s handed to him. It’s still warm, the crust crisp under his calloused palms and faintly dusted with flour. He flips it over and the man stiffens slightly. 

The bread is scored with expert skill; George traces the pattern with one finger before looking up. “This… is the king’s crest.”

The man runs a hand through his sandy hair. “Uh, yeah.”

“How did you…”

He reaches into his satchel again and pulls out the white thing that’d caught George’s eye before, presenting it forward. George doesn’t feel shock, not really, just some sort of twinge of surprise that he’s face to face with-

“Dream,” Dream himself says, by way of introduction.

“George,” he answers, more out of instinct than anything else.

Dream grins and everything clicks together.

George is in an alleyway with _Dream,_ unmasked.

If anyone sees them, at least one of them is bound to get shot. Each from the other’s social circle, like some sort of horrific Romeo and Juliet story where they only just met.

George drags Dream behind the bin with a sharp tug on his sleeve and pushes him down so that they can crouch.

“Woah!” Dream exclaims, quieting when George gives him a firm look. “What was that for?”

“You can’t just stand around, what if someone came by?”

Dream chuckles. “They wouldn’t care. I’m basically hired help.”

“You’re the king’s champion,” George hisses.

“You call it champion, I call it maid.”

George rolls his eyes. “Maids don’t know how to kill a man.”

“Now you’re insulting maids,” Dream retorts.

George laughs, he can’t help it. The most feared man in the nation, the king’s effective sword, has caught him digging through restaurant trash.

If he makes it back to Sapnap this will be one hell of a story.

“Are you poor?” Dream asks abruptly.

George sputters, leaning away on instinct and hitting his head on the metal edge of the bin. Dream winces at the hollow sound and George reaches up to touch the back of his skull. 

_That’s going to leave a bump._

“What kind of _question_ is that?”

“I’m trying to make a deal,” Dream says, as though George is the one acting out of character and he didn’t just ask a stranger his economic status. “You could come live with me.”

“I… what?”  
  
“I have a house, I have food.” Dream fidgets with the mask like a nervous habit, fingers tracing the permanent grin. “I could show you the world,” he promises, humor coloring his tone honey.

George isn’t sure how to answer. “What would I owe you?”

“Nothing. Company, maybe. I don’t have any friends.”

 _“I_ have a friend,” George muses, thinking of Sapnap, but also of the fact that someone with a serious career is trying to get him to move in for some reason. One not involving dirt or shady deals or rats; he feels vaguely like the fair maiden in a terrible novel. “I can’t leave him behind.”

Dream seems wholly unfazed. “Bring him too.”

The reason behind his mask is obvious now. Emotions flicker across Dream’s face like their words are written into his skin: confidence, slipping further the longer George lets the silence between them stretch. He rubs the back of his neck and looks away, but doesn’t say anything more.

“You’re inviting strangers to live with you,” George says, hesitantly. “Aren’t you worried or something?”

“George,” Dream stretches out his name like a windchime, the sound soft and reverberating. “You know I could kill you right now if I wanted.”

He pulls his sword out of his sheath and George grimaces as he drops it unceremoniously onto the ground, a puff of dust rising as it falls. “If you wanted to kill me, I’d probably just end up killing you. That’s like, the max amount of trust you can have with a person.”

“I don’t think that’s correct,” George huffs.

Dream shrugs again before standing up and offering a hand. George takes it; Dream’s grip is firm, but his hands aren’t soft as George had imagined someone who works with the royal family’s would be. Raised scars line his knuckles.

“Think about it,” Dream says. “I’ll meet you back here tomorrow.”

George opens his mouth to protest, but Dream is already picking up his sword and tucking the mask into his bag. He jogs away and slips seamlessly into the crowd, leaving George with only a cooled bread loaf and the echo of his voice.

* * *

“I have something to show you,” Sapnap says. His expression is stoic and he’s armored, axe at the ready. It’s not necessarily strange for him - he tends to err on the side of caution at all times - but the tension in his frame is something George hasn’t seen in years.

George starts to ask what’s going on, but Sapnap’s already pulling him, their feet pattering in tandem down the patchwork wood of the Prime Path. George feels like his ribs are digging into his lungs by the time they stop.

“Look,” Sapnap points.

There’s a _thing_ in the distance. It sticks out against the sky, even with the haphazard builds that litter their surroundings and George squints through his goggles to try and decipher what he’s looking at.

“I think it’s Dream’s big plan,” Sapnap says quietly, answering the question he didn’t even utter.

There’s some level of understanding between them, despite everything.

“What _is_ it?”

“I think… I think it’s a prison.”

Imprisonment isn’t a new punishment, there’s a jail cell near the Community House that doesn’t see much use anymore, but something about this _feels_ different. Its already-towering blackstone gives off an aura of danger, a raven’s feather in the morning.

“Who do you think it’s for?” George wonders, catching Sapnap’s eye. The usual fire in his gaze is muted and George fleetingly wonders what he’s missed.

Sapnap frowns slightly. “I don’t know.”

* * *

“I’ve never been inside,” George responds. 

There’s a pause before Sam continues. **“Where is your place of residence currently located?”**

* * *

Dream wraps bandages around his calf and sighs from his place on the floor.

Sapnap’s asleep, face flat against their wooden table. His gentle snores cut through the air, but the gaps of silence in between still feel inches thick.

“Think this is it for me?” Dream asks. He’s joking, he always is, always dancing around whatever truth he wants to confess to like a guilty man on the stand.

George doesn’t even turn around. “You’re too young to retire.”

“That’s not true. Philza - he stopped fighting at my age.”

“Yeah, to take care of his kid. Where are your children, Dream?”

Dream’s slight smile sounds through his words. “I’ve got you and Sapnap.”

“...You do,” George agrees faintly, after a second of hesitation. He doesn’t want to argue something pointless, not to a Dream that’s like this, but what he’d meant as a heartfelt gesture only makes Dream sigh again.

“That bad, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“Usually you’d be like, _”_ Dream raises his voice shrilly, putting on an accent, _“‘Nooo Dream, you’re the child. You’re literally just like a kid.’”_

Moving his goggles up to his hair and off of his face, George finally looks at Dream. His mask sits next to him, cracked, and in its place lies a face the public never sees. The light from their wall-hanging torches flits across it like a living thing, curious in its path.

Dream’s eyes gleam as much as usual, but his hair’s matted to his forehead and the exhaustion around his eyes and in the set of his mouth is obvious.

“I thought you deserved a win,” George quips.

Dream groans, letting go of the tail end of the white gauze and burying his head in his hands. “Don’t remind me.”

“You have the papers to do that.”

“I can’t wait for the headlines,” Dream mutters into his wilted-color sleeve, peeking up at him through the fabric.

George lifts his hands to write in exaggerated script across the air. “King’s Champion Fighter, Bested by a Rogue Piglin.”

“Loser Loses to Other Loser.”

“You didn’t both lose, Dream,” George chides.

Dream sits up properly, expression indignant. “Techno won _this time._ That doesn’t mean he’s not a loser.”

George stifles a laugh and turns back around, pocketing the materials he was looking for in their storage barrel before going to sit down on the chair across from Sapnap, who doesn’t stir. _“I_ don’t want to call the officially-strongest person in this world a ‘loser.’”

“You had no problem with it when that was me,” Dream complains.

George laughs at his petulance at something so simple. “Yeah, because you’d never kill me.”

“Wanna bet?”

“You’re an idiot.” George rolls his eyes and a grin works its way onto Dream’s face, back to easy camaraderie instead of the heavy weight of defeat.

“I’m jobless now,” Dream tells him matter-of-factly. “I’ll just rob you.”

“You would do that to your own child?”

Offense exaggerated in his voice, George smiles in triumph as Dream laughs, a sharp thing that tumbles down into a wheeze of air. Sapnap mumbles something unintelligible and shifts before stilling again, his exposed cheek red from being pressed against the wood. Dream only laughs harder.

Grateful for the shift in ambiance, George sticks out his hand and Dream delicately places the pieces of his mask in it. The thing is damn-near unbreakable, but it’d taken a direct hit.

Upon letting it go, Dream leans back against the wall and runs a hand through his hair. A hush settles in as George lays out the pieces and adhesive, but it’s gentle and Dream’s smile remains.

“I uh, I do have a place,” he starts, his voice soft and cautious. “We could go, if you- if you guys wanted.”

“Another job?” George asks.

Dream shakes his head, hair flopping at the ends. “No, actually. I have an abandoned world.”

George pauses his attempted solving of the shattered, smiley face puzzle - it’s all just _white_ and some parts _have_ to have broken off completely during the battle - to look Dream in the eye.

“You _what?”_

“Well, it was abandoned when I last saw it,” Dream muses. “It’s probably worth checking out.”

“Do you know how rare those are? We could sell it.”

“Shut up, George.” Dream laughs again and the sound alone seems to warm the room, pushing out any remaining unease in favor of Sapnap’s heavy breathing and the look on Dream’s unobscured face.

George loves these moments, simple bits of security in the bustle of their lives. Sapnap calm, Dream unreserved; it’s so unlike the forced patterns they fall into.

Sapnap comes back from carrying out hits with an inferno behind his eyes, anger fresh and boiling until he burns a hole in the floor with his pacing. Dream leaves in the middle of the night, never vowing to return just in case he dies with an unkept promise.

They do what they have to. All of them do, even George, slipping information between ends of the city, but it never feels quite right until all of the walls have been dismantled, however temporarily.

“You know we’d follow you anywhere,” George reminds, instead of trying to verbalize his feelings.

The look he gets, full of soft fondness, tells him that Dream knows what he’s thinking anyway.

“I mean, I hope so.”

* * *

Packing begins the next morning, Sapnap rolling his eyes at the sheer prospect of turning down an offer to go somewhere new. He’s only ever stayed for them; between that and Dream’s unemployment, George is the only one with enough sentiment to miss the place.

He’s also the only one to stay goodbye to their house when they leave, a stable little nondescript thing that kept them safe all this time.

It’s given George more than he can return, but it seems stupid to put that much weight on a building, so he places a palm on it and sighs out a short breath before rushing to catch up with his friends.

When they arrive, spawn is in the middle of a forest, trees towering overhead. They cut through it with ease and travel east, Dream warning them of the possibility that someone has settled in during his time away.

Carefulness in every step, they encounter nothing but new biomes and the hum of wild pigs and sheep.

“It seems like no one’s here,” Sapnap remarks.

George mutters his assent and Dream relaxes slightly, but they keep walking. Minutes pass with no change in environment until Sapnap, ahead of George, stumbles a bit and George realizes that they’ve reached a lake.

It’s large and serene, wind making faint ripples and fish cresting the surface only to dive back into its depths. Obscuring their vision is a single tree with an oak sign on it and George nudges Dream with his elbow just as Sapnap pushes forward.

“The SMP,” Sapnap reads before turning around to face them. “Kinda stupid name.”

Dream shrugs. “We can rename it.”

“The _Dream_ SMP,” George suggests, half-joking.

Sapnap groans loudly and almost says something - probably a string of complaints about how Dream already has a big enough ego without naming the world after him - but he pauses as he stares past George and something about what he sees seems to quiet him.

George looks; Dream has lifted his mask over his head, his eyes wide and glassy.

“My world,” he whispers.

Exchanging a glance with Sapnap, George remembers long nights in their last. Dream huddled in corners, haunted by his work as the king’s sword. Having killed people and burnt villages and destroyed lives for a world that gave him nothing in return.

Powerless in his strength, under another man’s control.

“You’re free,” George agrees.

The smile they receive in return is, even Sapnap will later admit, enough repayment for naming the world after him.

* * *

“The Dream SMP.”

Sam’s mask betrays no emotion. “Be more specific.”

 _Why?_ George thinks. _This land is my home._

“A small mushroom house,” he says, slowly. “By spawn. The one Tommy greifed.”

He wasn’t there when it burned. He wasn’t there when Tommy was condemned and he wasn’t there when the boy returned, vengeance and some sense of justice in his heart.

A war has waged without him and it isn’t the first time, but it’s the first with consequence that matters.

**“Do you believe that the prisoner is deserving of being locked up?”**

* * *

“One day, George,” Dream says, gazing over the barest sprout of L’manberg, “the sun will set on my time here, and will rise with you.”

George grins at his theatrics only for Dream to trip and fall a step down, laughing as Sapnap shoves him to the side and takes his place. Dream grips onto the cliffside and hoists himself back up.

“What the hell?” Sapnap pouts. “It will rise with me.”

The two squabble and mock-fight while George sits and stares down at the walled country run on hope.

It’s not the worst thing, honestly. L’manberg represents everything the three of them have escaped - people other than them wielding power and carrying ambition, the likes of which threatens to destroy their world - but there’s an argument to be made for the same applying in reverse.

If only Wilbur had decided to go further out for his elaborate plans.

He’s combative, not revolutionary. There’s nothing new about declaring people your enemy, just to have someone to fight against.

Sapnap and Dream eventually get bored and sit next to him, the three of them reminiscing on pieces of the past that flit in and out of their collective memory.

George had kept a cat once, years ago, and Sapnap claims he accidentally let it out while George adamantly assures Dream that there was nothing accidental about it.

They part ways when the sun dips past the imposing black walls and the barest hint of light lingers across the sky.

George starts to follow Dream back to his nook of a house, tucked away into a mountainside, but he halts, looking back at Sapnap. Sapnap lets out a dramatic, exasperated sigh as he waves them off before turning in the opposite direction.

George almost feels guilty, but he knows that Sapnap’s aware he’s never unwelcome, so he sets aside the feeling to check on later and races down to Dream who’s waiting at the bottom of the hill.

Armor clicking as they remove it for the night, George has to bite back his satisfaction at the way Dream removes his mask without hesitation and adds it to the pile.

He’s kept the mask on in public ever since the world started gaining residents, but in the space that’s theirs it’s no different than before.

“King George,” Dream bows deeply, expression mischievous. He ducks away as George swats at him.

“I'm not king.”

“Not yet.” Dream answers so warmly that George just sighs and nudges him with his shoulder. 

Dream nudges him back before rolling his neck and going to lay down on the bed in the corner, interlacing his fingers and staring at the ceiling. 

George is never sure what to do when they get to this point, something uncertain still tucked like a blanket around his heart, even after all this time.

It’s more manageable with Sapnap, who’s just as awkward and just ignores it; Dream has a unique sort of ease about him that’s disorienting.

Dream pats the space next to him without looking in George’s direction and George rolls his eyes at how easily Dream reads him. He sets aside his shoes and lays down too, the bed creaking slightly under their combined weight.

They curl toward each other, hanging apostrophes with only air in between. Dream’s lips curve softly upward and George can’t stop himself from mirroring him. There’s noise in the distance, but it doesn’t disturb the peace.

The comfort they’ve built comes with disregard for whatever people happen to be doing outside.

“This is my world,” Dream murmurs like a confession. “Which means it’s yours.”

He’s still on about the king thing, but it feels more real here, more tangible. As though Dream is offering him something more valuable than a crown.

“What if I don't want the world?” George whispers back. “What if I just want you?”

Dream doesn’t react, but his eyes betray him, a bolt of surprise striking through faded gold. “We’re a package deal, Georgie.”

“I’ll take the lot then,” he agrees.

A satisfied hum is all he’s given before Dream’s eyelashes flutter and he starts to drift off. A faint whistle sounds somewhere and the night is warm.

George falls asleep soon after, lulled by the sound of Dream’s steady breathing.

* * *

George’s mind goes in a number of directions as Dream demands he step down, but his main thought is _past me would never believe this._

That’s what hurts. Not the loss of the stupid, gaudy throne, or the castle he never wanted anyway, or the diadem he never actually cared to wear. It’s the clean edges of Dream’s words, not a lick of remorse or emotion in his decision.

_He thought it’d be a good time. We can talk about it later. Eret is king now._

“Just say you hate me,” George demands.

 _Hate_ is a simple thing, a one-dimensional emotion outside of their complexity. He’s pretty sure it’s not possible for them, even now; even if Dream went and did almost anything. They’re too deeply intertwined for that.

George is just trying to goad Dream into revealing more than he can decipher from that familiar, inked-on smile.

He’s asking for an indication that the impassive man in the netherite armor is still Dream, still the person who promised the world to him.

“I _care_ about you,” Dream replies. But he’s laughing, like the question is irrelevant.

Anything else he might add is drowned out by his argument with Sapnap, whose bow is still trained on the smooth white of Dream’s mask. George’s heart clenches in his chest, a ball of coal compressing into a gem.

Maybe they should’ve seen this coming. When Wilbur died, blowing up the country Dream had said he’d leave be. When he gave his gear to Tommy, only to side with Schlatt. When he started fighting a war over nothing.

 _What has this all been for?_ George can’t help but wonder.

“Whatever George decides, I’ll stick with him,” Sapnap says, ever loyal.

“It’s not up to George.” Dream’s still laughing. “How do you think he got kingship?”

_You, Dream._

“Who gives the king…” Sapnap’s weapon lowers, his brows knit. George almost wants to apologize for the realization he’s going to be forced into. Wants to go back in time and say he’s okay with it just to avoid the inevitable hurt on Sapnap’s face. “I don’t understand how that works. The hierarchy.”

“It’s the _Dream_ SMP,” Punz says, as though it should be obvious.

Maybe it should be. Maybe it always should’ve been.

Punz probably doesn’t know what he’s doing when he says that, but Dream does when doesn’t refute it.

The acknowledgement pierces through whatever layers of love and friendship they've built up. Years of the kind of trust people tell stories about, swept away in confirmed fear.

Dream is the one in control.

George and Sapnap are just his subordinates.

Sapnap’s bow clatters against the side of his armor, his expression exactly as George predicted. He watches a protest rot and die on his friend’s tongue. He forces himself to look away.

* * *

“I agree with what the people think is best.”

Sam’s head tilts to the side, an indicator of thoughtfulness. “I’m not sure if I like that answer.”

“Would you rather I lie?” George deadpans.

Silence stretches across them for so long that George’s palms start to feel warm; he’s come too far to get thrown out now. The mask - creeper shaped, a deadly monster for a facade - tells him nothing about the other side of the exchange.

“Alright,” Sam says, finally. **“What are your prior relationships with the prisoner?”**

* * *

“How far would I have to go,” Dream starts, hesitantly, “for you to leave me behind?”

The night sky outside their windows is pitch black, pinpricks of starlight too faint to be seen.

George’s gotten used to their out-of-sync sleep; Dream is juggling a lot at the moment, but this sort of prodding question is entirely new.

“You could go all the way to the moon,” George laughs, holding a hand out and placing Dream’s mask on a hook when he offers it up. “And I'd still be right behind you.”

There’s something so ridiculous about the idea that he’d _leave_ _Dream_ , after all they’ve been through, that he immediately dismisses it as one of Dream’s rare moments of insecurity and goes to organize their chests.

Dream grabs his arm, stopping him. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course.” George shakes off his grip and looks into his eyes, searching for some kind of feverishness, or even humor. There’s only apprehension there, a murky sort of sickness that doesn’t suit his usually self-assured features. “What’s gotten into you?”

Tensions are high, of course. Schlatt is president of a land that was never meant to have a ruler to begin with - that shouldn’t exist, in many ways - which adds a layer of uncertainty to the future that wasn’t there before.

Dream’s spent hours pouring over battle plans and diplomatic strategies, tapping into the pieces of himself George had thought he’d left behind.

It’s a tad unnerving on its own, but this feels like more than that.

“Wilbur asked to be my… vassal.”

George frowns. “Okay, what does that mean?”

“He wants to blow up Manberg,” Dream replies, looking away.

It wouldn’t be the first time that place has seen destruction. George was there when they lit the first stick of dynamite, setting off the trap they’d laid under the base.

It seems like so long ago. The claimed area had been little more than forest back then; a van in its center and a troupe of just Wilbur and his pseudo-family.

“The land?” George asks. “Or everything?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

People live in L’manberg now. It’s a home. It has buildings and people and roots; the kind that stretch across all parts of their world.

Tommy’s embassy, on Dream’s territory even as one of the country’s founding fathers. Niki’s bakery, the pastries she’ll deliver to anyone upon request.

Even just Quackity, the first friend George has made in years.

The man is restless energy to the point of recklessness, but he’s driven by good; a want for people to remain just and uncorrupted. He only ran for president because he believed that Wilbur was tyrannical and now he’s working a cabinet job.

Now he visits with burn marks on his arms and bags under his eyes.

“What if he-” George’s voice shakes slightly and he coughs into his arm. “What if he kills them?”

He doesn’t clarify who _them_ is and Dream doesn’t ask, because he knows. They fought a war against those people, attacked them in a blackstone box for the sake of their world’s safety.

George has left one of them bleeding before, so maybe he shouldn’t care, but George has never been someone they trust anyway.

Wilbur _has._

“Wilbur wouldn’t do that.” Dream speaks confidently, no hint of guilt or wavering glance, but George can’t tell if it’s fact or his own conviction.

“So you gave him TNT?”

Dream nods.

George takes a deep breath, his eyes fluttering shut against the headache he feels oncoming. “Why?”

“Don’t you want to see this thing gone?”

 _No,_ he thinks.

Because he doesn’t.

George doesn’t care, he’s never cared.

So what if these people want to take one corner of this seemingly endless world and claim it as theirs? Move whatever plans you might’ve had two inches to the left. Move on.

That’s what he would tell anyone else, probably even Sapnap.

Dream isn’t just anyone else though. Dream cares so fiercely for what he considers his and George knows that if Dream were to ask him to be on the front lines of this stupid war he’d go back to sharpening his sword immediately, this time on the edge of the Prime Path instead of in back alleys.

What was it he’d just said?

To the moon.

Even if there’s no air out there.

“Promise me you won’t...” George struggles to voice his thoughts.

Dream reaches forward and grabs his hand, lacing their fingers together. “I’ll be fine.”

A delicate promise in the way he gently rubs George’s thumb with his own; he brings the back of George’s hand to his lips and George can feel his smile.

His real one, in a face the others have never seen.

_What if Dream kills them?_

“You’d better be,” he whispers back.

* * *

George remembers sharp flashes of color and smell and sound. Dream is everywhere and everything and a promise of forever and then he’s nothing at all.

“George,” Sam prompts again and George shakes himself out of his reverie.

“We were… friends.”

“Friends?”

Sam’s warden persona slips, just for a second, and it’s almost the Sam he knows in front of him. The Sam whose cautious steps echoed around a room in which him and Sapnap held each other in broken silence.

“Obviously,” George says lightly, “things are different now.”

That’s not an answer to the question and they both know it. If it was anyone else, Sam might’ve pushed harder, but he doesn’t.

Maybe it’s because it’s George. Maybe it’s because of the sting he can feel behind his eyes.

Maybe it’s just that whatever the real answer may be, the question is designed to screen the visitor. Both sides of Sam must know that George isn’t here to rescue anyone.

* * *

Sam asks for his understanding - the potential repercussions for any actions he takes - and George affirms that he is willing to accept whatever comes.

He signs the documents and hands them over, putting only the goggles he wears everywhere in the offered chest, since he brought nothing else with him.

It’s a tedious process. The prison is more of a maze than anything else, George is confident that even if he did manage to get in somehow he wouldn’t know where to go.

All the repeated physical examinations and turns culminate with him on a bridge, staring at a wall of lava. The sight of it burns at his eyes so he shuts them, just for a bit.

Sam’s presence looms behind him and the sound of the guardians keeps time and George doesn’t even begin to try and reconcile himself with where he is and what’s going on. It’s too much.

When he opens his eyes, the path is cleared. The lava is now just a pool and in the distance stands Dream, kept behind some sort of gate.

He looks tiny.

Sam sends George across and every click of the bridge mechanism punctuates his heartbeat. He wills himself to stay upright; one wrong move would mean a painful death. Drowning in fire is not the way he cares to go.

George reaches the other side and turns to look back only for Sam to flip a switch and walk away. The lava begins to replace itself and George breathes in a shaky breath.

It sinks all the way down to the bottom and the netherite blocks that act as a barrier are retracted into the ground.

Then, it’s just the two of them.

George could reach out for Dream if he wanted, but to do what? Hold him? Hurt him?

George isn’t sure which one of them would suffer more if their skin touched.

Dream doesn’t move, so George gathers himself and steps forward, his footsteps clattering through the tense silence.

“They let you keep your mask,” George remarks.  
  
Dream lifts a hand to it how a normal person would ones’ face, a signal of self-consciousness of a sort, before shrugging.

“Who am I without it?”

**Author's Note:**

> In the end:
> 
> \- I've had this sitting, incomplete, essentially since Dream got locked up  
> \- Thoughts on the title? It's from Wonderland, I keep flipping between it and "what becomes of curious minds"  
> \- My hobby these days is dragging characters into the lore who want nothing to do with it  
> \- Check out my Tumblr <3\. Same @, I complain about how my writing is going


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